


Road Work Ahead

by AXEe



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, F/F, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-29
Updated: 2019-10-29
Packaged: 2021-01-08 00:46:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,986
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21227000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AXEe/pseuds/AXEe
Summary: Nineteen year old Kara Zorel needs a good, steady job.   But this one wasn't what she expected.   Not at all





	Road Work Ahead

**Author's Note:**

> A bit of GD human fun for Halloween. Based on and inspired by the sci-fi short film "Deep Clean" which can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KYqA7a_uZo. Seriously if you liked "Men in Black" or "Supernatural" and/or "Doctor Who" you'll probably like this short :=). 
> 
> Enjoy both this and the fic :=)

******

Kara Zorel shivered as she pulled her hoodie tighter around her as she spotted the bright yellow van as it pulled up to the curb. It was weather-beaten, probably bought second-hand, with a slightly fading paintjob. Stamped on the side in bold black lettering was:

**All-Purpose Utility Inc.  
Plumbing. Road work. General Contracting  
_”We clean up, so you don’t have to”_**

Pulling to a stop at the curb with a slight rattle, the passenger side door opened.

“Holy shit!” the driver exclaimed “Kara! God! I hardly recognized you!” she laughed.

“Hi, Aunt Astra” Kara sighed as she climbed into the van, shutting the door.

“What? No hug for your only aunt?” Astra asked.

“Too cold” Kara replied as the older woman stared the van and pulled away from the curb.

“Well, you’ll get used to that,” Astra replied as she held out a thermos to the girl “drink up,” she advised “we need you awake”

“At six AM?” Kara exclaimed as she took the thermos and took a sip.

“Teenagers” Astra muttered…

******

In short order, Astra pulled the van to a stop outside what appeared to be a hole in the road. Well, to be fair there was a utility truck parked besides the hole with the same color scheme and logo as the van along with several traffic cones diverting cars, but the fact remained: it was a hole in the road.

“This is where we’re working?” Kara asked skeptically as the van pulled to a stop with another rattle.

“Yeah,” Astra nodded “relax, it’ll be good for you,” she grinned “get your hands dirty for once”

Reluctantly climbing out, Kara donned the bright yellow safety vest and hardhat that Astra had tossed in her general direction and followed her aunt to the aforementioned hole in the road. Standing around said hole in the road, were four people, three women and one man, neither of whom seemed to be doing any actual work on said hole in the road. Two of the three women were sitting in a pair of camping chairs sipping coffee, while the third woman was sitting in the open cab of the truck talking on her cell phone, and the one lone male member of the group was leaning against the truck reading what looked like a comic book.

None of the four really reacted when they saw Astra and Kara approach.

“All right,” Astra began “Kara, meet the gang,” she introduced “gang, meet my niece Kara”

“Hey” the four all muttered, without really looking up from whatever they were doing at present.

Undeterred, Astra continued the introductions.

“All right, you’ve met Alex once or twice I think” she began.

The brunette in question looked up from her coffee, blinking in surprise.

“Oh, hey, Kara,” she grinned “long time no see,” she pushed herself up right and offered a hand “you probably don’t remember me, do you?” she remarked.

“Afraid not” Kara admitted.

“That’s all right,” Alex dismissed “I’m the one who you’re aunt here’s been dating for the past two years” she explained.

Kara blinked, the name ‘Alex’ ping-ponging around inside her skull looking for somewhere to connect, finally finding it.

“Oh, now wait,” Kara began “you’re not ‘Alex Danvers’, are you?”

“That’s me,” Alex grinned “anyway, meet the rest of the gang,” she introduced “uh, this is Lucy Lane,”

The still-sitting brunette lifted her coffee cup in a mock toast of a greeting.

“Uh, over there in the truck is Susan Vasquez,” Alex continued.

The woman in the cab of the truck talking on her phone looked up and wiggled her fingers in a brief greeting.

“And, finally, the guy over there reading _Spider-man_ is Winn Schott, Jr.,” Alex concluded “Lucy’s boyfriend”

“You say that like it’s a bad thing, Alex” Winn called out.

“She could do a lot better, Schott” Alex called back.

“Ignore them” Astra advised Kara.

Nodding, Kara looked around the job site, pausing to peer into the hole in the road, seeing the top of what looked like a collapsible ladder but not much else.

“So, uh, what am I doing?” Kara wondered.

“Ah, you my dear, darling niece, will be on sign work” Astra beamed.

“Sign work?” Kara echoed, confused.

As if to answer her question, Winn came over and held out a large, orange stop sign on a long, thin pole with three ‘feet’, planting it in front of the blonde.

“Sign work” Kara nodded in understanding.

Taking the stop sign on a stick, she walked over to where Astra indicated, mentally chanting to herself.

_‘It’s a paying job,’_ she told herself _‘it’s a paying job’_

******

Kara’s ‘paying job’ may have paid off in terms of monetary gain, but that was it. For the last three hours she had stood in the middle of the road leaning against her stop sign on a stick waving cars past. She was cold, tired, and bored. To make matters worse, the drivers who sped past her acted as if she—and, by extension, the others—were the bane of their existence.

Granted, Kara did seem to be the only who was actually ‘working’ in any sense of the word.

For the past three hours, the only work any of the others seemed to do was move from one sitting position to another. The height of excitement had been about fifteen minutes ago, when Winn, Lucy, and Susan had all piled into the van and left, for where Kara didn’t know, but it was certainly more exciting than here that was sure.

With the other three’s departure, that left just her, Astra, and Alex, and like before, Kara seemed to be the only one working. Currently, both Alex and Astra were sitting in the two camp chairs looking at something on Astra’s phone.

Finally, Kara couldn’t take it anymore.

“What are two doing anyway?” she demanded.

“We’re on a break” Alex answered without looking up.

Huffing out an annoyed breath, Kara turned back to manning her stop sign on a stick. At that moment however, both Alex and Astra sat up suddenly.

“Whoa, did you see that?” Alex asked.

“Yeah,” Astra nodded “it says that there’s something still moving around down there”

Glancing back over her shoulder, Kara watched as both women stood up, donning their hardhats and then headed towards the hole in the road.

“All right, Kara?” Astra called “extra job for you, you stay up here and make sure that no one goes down here, clear?”

“Yeah” Kara answered distractedly as the other two women disappeared down into the hole…

******

Ten minutes later and Kara was still bored out of her skull, only now she was a little lonely too. Both Alex and Astra were still down the hole in the road and had yet to return.

Pushing off her stop sign on a stick, Kara stretched out her stiff back and wandered back towards the utility truck in search of something to snack on. Opening the unlocked door, she rooted around the cab, pausing as the radio suddenly crackled to life.

“_Control, this is Crew B,_” Astra’s voice called out “_we still have an active leak down here,_” there was another burst of static, drowning out Astra’s voice “_Control, do you copy?_” she called again, her voice sounding a little more frantic than before “_Control? Damn it! Now is not the time for a coffee brea--_” with a final squeal of static the call cut off.

Frowning, Kara glanced between the radio and the hole in the road. It could have been nothing at all, but what if one of them was hurt?

Finding a heavy-duty flashlight in the glove compartment, Kara checked it was working properly before slamming the door shut and making her own way to the hole in the road…

******

Climbing down the ladder, Kara found herself standing at the top of a set of narrow stairs. Faded lettering on the wall to her right read ‘NATIONAL CITY STEAM CORRIDOR No. 1’. Carefully making her way down the stairs she found that the passageway opened up into a narrow, dark, dank corridor. Pipes crisscrossed the walls and ceiling, many still hissing slightly as she made her way along.

Swinging her flashlight around, she didn’t see any immediate sign of either Alex or Astra, but there was plenty of imaginative and overly-descriptive graffiti on the walls.

Rounding a corner, Kara paused as her flashlight caught sight of what looked to be a boot. Crouching down, she wrinkled her nose as the sight of the thick, foul-smelling slime covering the piece of footwear.

A loud clatter had her suddenly looking up, her flashlight catching Alex laying a few feet away from the boot. The other woman was clearly awake and uninjured, but it looked like something was holding her in place. Suddenly whatever it was _moved_.

If asked to describe the creature now firmly wrapped around Alex’s legs and torso, Kara would have only been able to use words like ‘tentacles’ and ‘teeth’.

The _something_ suddenly released Alex and rapidly slithered/crawled/ran towards Kara. In the flickering light of her flashlight all she saw of it was rows upon endless rows of teeth.

Gasping, Kara fell backwards, franticly crab walking away from the Thing. But, before it could reach her, the head of shovel suddenly stabbed down on it’s ‘head’, there was a spray of some kind of thick black sludge and the Thing stopped moving,

“Damn it,” Astra panted out as she gave the shovel a few more whacks “didn’t I tell you to stay up there?!!”

“You did, yeah” Alex said calmly as she sat up, absently wiping slime off her shirt with a grimace.

Panting for breath, Kara could only sit there, staring at the two women as the Thing finally stopped twitching.

Sighing, Astra straightened up and offered Kara a hand.

“C’mon,” she sighed as she pulled Kara to her feet “you’re here now, might as well help out” she declared.

Shakily standing on wobbly, watery knees, Kara assessed the dead Thing in the dim gloom.

“What…is it?” she breathed.

“Uh, interdimensional creature,” Astra answered with a shrug “we just call ‘em ‘fuckups’, because that’s what they do”

“They come in and fuck everything up” Alex added as she took out what looked like an epi pen and stabbed herself in the leg with it.

“Come in?” Kara asked “come in through where? What?”

******

“Kinda pretty isn’t it?” Astra remarked a few minutes later.

“Yeah” Alex nodded.

Kara looked between the two women and finally at the strange, glowing, twisted Other Thing before them.

“Some that thing back there, came through…here?” she asked slowly.

“Yep” Astra answered.

“But,” Kara shook her head “I mean, what’s on the other side of this thing? Where’s it go?”

“Dunno,” Alex shrugged “not our department anyway” she added.

“_Way_ beyond our paid grade too,” Astra added.

She rocked back and forth on her heels for a few seconds.

“Welp,” she finally sighed “c’mon, let’s get the gear out of the truck, plug this thing up” she declared…

******

Kara frowned as she assessed the rough pencil sketch she’d made of the two Things down there as she sat in a third camp chair between Alex and Astra.

“That’s pretty good” Alex noted in between regular wipes of more slime off her clothes.

“Don’t worry,” Kara sighed “I won’t show it to anyone”

“No one would believe you anyway,” Astra chuckled as she sipped her coffee “they don’t want to, they just want to go about their lives liking things on Facebook and reading about which celebrity got engaged”

“So, even if you did show that to someone, they’d probably just go _‘oh, nice, did you draw that yourself?’_” Alex added.

Settling back in the chairs, the three women each took a sip of their respective drinks.

“So,” Astra suddenly asked “Kara, same time tomorrow?”

Kara smirked.

“Sure” she nodded…

**END**

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you thought :=)


End file.
